Twitter had recently threatened to take legal action against Meta over its new text-based app called Threads, which has drawn seventy million users since launching this week as a rival to Elon Musk’s social media platform.
In a letter Wednesday to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Alex Spiro, an attorney representing Twitter, accused Meta of unlawfully using Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property by hiring former Twitter employees to create a “copycat” app.
Threads, which was launched on Wednesday, is similar to Twitter and has been pitched by Meta bosses as a “friendly” alternative.
The move ramps up the tensions between the social media giants after Threads debuted, targeting those who seek out alternatives to Twitter amid unpopular changes Musk has made to the platform since buying it last year for $44 billion.
Meta responds
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone wrote Thursday on Threads: “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing.”
“Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information,” the letter says.
“Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice.”
Elon Musk also said that “competition is fine, cheating is not” in response to a post on Twitter that referred to the legal letter.
By Wanjiru Mbaru